Giving a hoot about Canadian music

Review – “No. 1” – Common Tone Club

reviewed by Laura Stanley

When you’re a kid, clubs are much more exciting than most clubs you can join as an adult. Kid clubs are created in fervent whispers at recess (maybe sealed with a pinky promise) and the logo and mandate are scribbled down during arts and crafts time.

The first meeting of the Common Tone Club (a mysterious band from Vancouver) is quietly playful. It has the earnest energy of a club founded at recess and fuelled by dunk-a-roos. It’s a lo-fi all-instrumental affair that flirts with folk and classical genres. The guitars that occupy No. 1 are plucked and softly strummed. They tumble around a piano on “In Soil,” hold hands with the hesitant sounds of a banjo on “Eyelid Shapes” and “Blue Carousel (Dirge Boy Reprise)” and jump on and off of typewriter keys on the final track “Change the Ribbon! (Falkland Islands-only Bonus Track).”

The highlight of the four track EP is the opener, and the most flushed out song of the bunch, “In Soil.” The track makes me think about a flower’s determined journey from seed to sprout to a blooming beauty. “In Soil” has a steady plucked melody that mimics the forward motion of growth. Around the half-way mark, the music dies down and we hear birds. A throat is cleared and the plucked melody returns, more powerful than before. What a beautiful sight.

On Common Tone Club’s Bandcamp page, they write “open membership” and leave a phone number you can call if you have inquires. Perhaps I should phone and ask where to sign up.